The Mitchell family is still looking for answers and finding comfort in their faith almost a week after Howard Mitchell and five children were killed in a van crash near Kit Carson.

"It's still a blur," Howard Mitchell's wife, Melody, said today. "We are very strong and we have each other."

In the first time speaking since the accident, the Mitchell family said the are leaning on each other and their faith to get through.

Melody Mitchell said the seven children who survived the accident, including one who was not part of her family, all are recovering well.

While the family is still looking for answers, the coroner informed Melody today that her husband had an 80 percent blockage in his heart. Tests could neither confirm nor deny that he suffered a heart attack before or during the accident.

On Thursday, Howard Mitchell and his five adopted and foster children, ranging in age from 10 to 17, were killed when the 15-passenger van he was driving slammed into the back of a semitrailer truck stopped in traffic on U.S. 287, about 2 miles south of Kit Carson.

The remaining seven passengers were taken to various hospitals for their injuries. While there were 15 seatbelts available in the van, only a 14-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy in a child safety seat, were restrained.

One of the seven injured children was not part of the Mitchell family.

Mitchell was driving through a construction zone with reduced speeds when his 1999 Dodge Ram 3500 van collided with the back of the trailer, according to the Colorado State Patrol. The two vehicles entangled together and remained upright as they continued south on the highway.

The driver of the semi-truck, Jared Kauffman, 26 of Cheyenne, was treated for minor injuries and released from the hospital.

The Mitchell family is well-known in Kit Carson, where they have run a home for adopted and foster children for about five years. The home is licensed to care for a total of 11 children, according to the Colorado Department of Human Services.

The Mitchell Home for Children will be allowed to continue caring for children under a state license, Liz McDonough, spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Human Services, said today.

Mitchell was driving the 12 children to school in Eads. The children where they were enrolled in the school almost five years ago, after the Kit Carson School District R-1 voted not to sign a letter telling state officials the school could provide for the special needs of some of the children.

Howard Mitchell, 57, was a deputy with the Cheyenne County Sheriff's Office.

The Mitchell's two adopted children, Tayla and Tony Mitchell, both 10, were killed in the accident. Three foster children Austyn Atkinson, 11; Andy Dawson, 13; and Jeremy Franks, 17 were also killed.

Services for the six killed will be at 1 p.m. on Friday at the Eads High School.

Donations can be sent to the family's memorial fund at First Bank, 301 1st Street, Kersey, CO 80644 or Kit Carson State Bank, PO Box 175, Kit Carson, CO 80825. Checks should be addressed to the Mitchell Family Fund.

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